


Until the Sun Sets

by BlackWitchFandom



Category: The Black Witch Chronicles
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, First In The Fandom, I'm Bad At Summaries, Slow Burn, The Black Witch, The Black Witch Chronicles - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:02:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23497960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackWitchFandom/pseuds/BlackWitchFandom
Summary: Her heart skipped a beat as she saw who her professor was motioning to. There, standing in front of the entire lecture hall was the root of all her problems from the past week. The sole reason she was rooming with an insane rave girl, the reason she’d have to go to work this afternoon, and the reason her aunt had completely cut off Elloren from any allowance her parents had left behind for her. And what irked her even more, was that Lukas Grey was undeniably handsome, with sharp features and penetrating green eyes that were looking directly at her.A modern day college AU which roughly follows the plot of the books.
Relationships: Jarod Ulrich/Aislinn Greer, Lukas Grey/Elloren Gardner, Rafe Gardner/Diana Ulrich, Yvan Guriel/Elloren Gardner
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	Until the Sun Sets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few things regarding the setup of this AU:
> 
> 1.For a few of the characters who’s ages weren’t mentioned in the book, I guessed their age.  
> 2.During the “Realm War” Gardneria took over Verpacia  
> 3.The characters still have their affinity lines, but cannot access their magic (will be explained later)  
> 4.In the books, Elloren is in her first year of university, but in this, she is in her second year.

Despite the fact that class didn’t start for another fifteen minutes, and the lecture hall was not even a three-minute walk away, there was an underlying feeling in the pit of her stomach that made Elloren walk faster, or at least attempt to. The over-priced, yet extremely comfortable, dark grey sweater Aunt Vyvian had gifted her last week happened to be the only acceptable thing for Elloren to wear on her first day of classes, or so her aunt believed. However, it would be socially unacceptable, her aunt’s words not her own, if she did not wear the absolutely flattering black pencil skirt that they’d bought at the mall a few weeks prior, which happened to greatly restrict her range of motion. The skirt alone already hindered her ability to satisfy her internal warning to walk faster, and the four-inch black heels that Aunt Vyvian has insisted were the only ones that matched the outfit perfectly were making it near impossible to walk as it was. Elloren would have to remember to convince her aunt to invest in a few pairs of flats and wedges; however, that was assuming that Aunt Vyvian ever changed her mind and started funding her again. 

She picked her head up briefly to check the distance between her current position and the hall before looking back to the ground to avoid the vast number of pinecones that littered the sidewalk. Elloren knew she wasn’t particularly the most coordinated person, though she wasn’t exactly clumsy either, however, with the way her luck had going the past few days, she wouldn’t be surprised if she stepped on a pinecone and managed to break her ankle. Normally this late into fall they wouldn’t be as abundant as they were, but she had a feeling that the woods near Verpax University hated her, or at least knew she was going to be wearing heels that day.

Elloren was thankful when she made it to the lecture hall without incident. Maybe today wasn’t going to be that bad, she thought with a half-smile. Everything else in her life might be going downhill at the moment, but at least she made it to class without tripping. As quickly as she could, Elloren walked towards the seats while scanning for Tierney. Much to her dismay, Tierney had chosen a seat in the fifth row which meant that she’d have to attempt to make it up and down the stairs in her already problematic heels. As she made it up the stairs and down the row to her friend, she quietly reminded herself that it could be worse; though, she had a strong feeling that the day would only be getting worse. 

“You’re lucky you’re not late,” Tierney said as she sat down.

“Relax,” Elloren said as she grabbed her laptop from her leather satchel, “class doesn’t start for another ten minutes.”

Tierney shook her head, “I thought I reminded you last night: Dr. Hawkkyn always starts class early. Did you not listen to any of the warnings that the grad students gave during Pathways?”

“Right,” she let out a sigh.

“Anyways,” Tierney started, “how do you like your new room-”

“Good morning, class” a foreign accent boomed, cutting off Tierney mid-question, “I assume there’s no need to introduce myself, as I’m sure you’ve heard quite a bit about me from my former students, and that there’s no need to announce what class this is; however, there are 47 of you in here and only 46 signed up for the class. So, I will, for the one student who’s ignorant enough to walk into the wrong lecture hall, tell you what class you’re sitting in. Welcome to General Microbiology, a prerequisite to Microbiology I. If this is not the class you signed up for then get out of my hall,” he said bluntly.

After a brief second, a young man, who seemed to be visibly trembling, scurried out of the room. Elloren felt a twinge of pity for the guy, Dr. Hawkkyn wasn’t particularly kind or calm when dismissing him, but he was right: what college student couldn’t read the numbers on the doors?

“Now, I’d like to start by making a few revisions to the syllabus I sent out last week,” the same syllabus Elloren had only skimmed briefly.

“Your writeups on the May 2015 science journal written by Dr. Lucretia Quillen are to be submitted by Friday at 11:59 pm rather than Sunday. Exactly a week after will be due to another article on the same topic, but a more recent theory published a few weeks ago. I’ll have it sent to you shortly so that you may begin as soon as you’re ready.”

Elloren shot Tierney a look of dread. She’d only read over Quillen’s article once and hadn’t come close to understanding it. Now the deadline had been pushed up two days, and another article was assigned on top of it.

“As well, the group study sessions with my TA are being changed from Wednesday and Thursday from 5:30-7:00 to Thursday and Friday from 6:00-7:30. I’ve recently gotten a new TA as I found out that my last one was an incompetent acerebral anathema and plague to all of Gardneria,” Dr. Hawkkyn paused briefly to fix his tie and catch his breath, “and finally, I know at the beginning of the syllabus I wrote that I would not be giving additional credit to those who helped with grad students’ labs; however, my teaching assistant needs a few extra hands in his final lab. Due to the rigor of his experiment, and the longevity of it, those he chooses to help him will receive minimal credit. Now then, I’ll let him briefly introduce himself before we get on with the lecture.”

Her heart skipped a beat as she saw who her professor was motioning to. There, standing in front of the entire lecture hall was the root of all her problems from the past week. The sole reason she was rooming with an insane rave girl, the reason she’d have to go to work this afternoon, and the reason her aunt had completely cut off Elloren from any allowance her parents had left behind for her. And what irked her even more, was that Lukas Grey was undeniably handsome, with sharp features and penetrating green eyes that were looking directly at her. Her emotions were a whirlwind of fuming anger and something close to desire when he winked at her like they were old friends. 

The entirety of both Lukas’ introduction and Dr. Hawkkyn’s lecture got lost somewhere in her mind as Elloren tried to calculate the odds of her situation. She figured that it must be near impossible that the source of everything wrong in her life currently, the man her aunt was vigorously trying to get her to date, also happened to be one of her TAs. She silently cursed her professor’s first choice in assistants for being incompetent and screwing her over before she forced herself to begin taking notes. 

\-----

Elloren slammed her laptop closed in frustration. She’d just finished watching her second YouTube video on Quillen’s article, having previously reread the paper for the third time, and she still understood nothing. How was it that it was only the second day of classes and she was already behind? Her freshman year, Elloren could have skipped a day or two of studying and have been fine, but this year? Microbiology alone was killing her. 

“Tierney,” she whined, “can you please help me with this? I swear it’s not written in English.”

Tierney put her book down and looked over, “Elloren, when I said I understood it, I meant I understood it well enough to write my essay on it, not teach it to you. If you need help, join one of the study groups.”

“I would, but I have work right after class every day except Thursday and Friday.”

“And no one’s putting their group on the same days as the TA’s sessions, gotcha. So, why not just go to those? I mean, you’re a broke college student whose work interferes with literally every opportunity you have to not fall behind.”

“I’m not broke, I’m managing” Elloren pointed out defensively, “Unlike Rafe, I didn’t spend all my money as soon as I got it.”

Elloren got up from her seat on the couch and moved to the kitchen, “and there’s no way I’m spending an hour and a half with Lukas Grey when I could just study by myself.”

Tierney laughed a little, “and how’s that been working out for you the past,” she paused to check her phone, “four hours?”

“Perfectly fine,” she said as she grabbed a glass from the cabinet.

“Are you sure about that? Elloren, be serious. You got lucky today that Le Café Rouge closed for repairs, but you’re normally not going to have this much time after classes to study. And soon, you’re going to have to study for your other classes as well.”

“You don’t understand, Tierney. Lukas Grey is the reason my life is shit right now; therefore, there is no reason as to why I should spend any more time with him than necessary.”

Tierney shook her head as Elloren walked back to the living room with a full glass of water in hand, “Elloren, I think you’re confusing Lukas with your aunt. How can a guy you’ve never met be ruining your life?”

“Trust me, he is. Instead of doing what any sensible person would do, tell my aunt he doesn’t want to date a girl he hasn’t met, Lukas continues to let her entertain this ludicrous idea of us getting in a long term relationship; furthermore condemning me to the wrath of my aunt.”

“But Elloren,” Tierney stole her glass and took a sip, “if you didn’t want to be ‘condemned to the wrath of your aunt’, why don’t you just go out with him?”

Elloren paused for a moment. Of course, Tierney was right; Elloren could simply go up to Lukas in class on Wednesday and ask him out. She wouldn’t have to deal with her horrid situation any longer and better yet, she’d only have to go to work one day. However, there were two problems with that: Elloren was far too stubborn to let Aunt Vyvian win this and Fallon Bane would surely rip her to shreds next time they crossed paths. Elloren was fairly sure that girl was less than mentally stable, and she had read the message clearly that Lukas was hers after their week together during the summer. It would take a lot more than the promise of money and better lodging to convince Elloren to cross any Bane, especially Fallon.

“Despite how tempting that is, I’d rather stay on Fallon’s good side,” Elloren snatched her glass and set it on the other side of her, “or her slightly better side. I highly doubt that Fallon has anything close to resembling a good side.”

Tierney couldn’t help but laugh, “but the look on her face would be priceless if she saw the two of you walking by arm in arm. Besides, I think she could pull off jealousy.”

“And how well do you think I’d pull off death?”

“Well I’m fairly sure Fallon won’t kill you; your aunt would never let her get away with that. However, if you insist on staying single till your mid to late thirties, then that’s on you, but I’d like to be a godmother at some point.”

Elloren rolled her eyes, “I’ll get a boyfriend eventually, just not till I’m out of college. I really don’t need any distractions.”

“You’re right; what you need is a tutor,” she countered.

“No, I need to pass Dr. Hawkkyn’s class,” Elloren corrected.

“Right, so you need a tutor.”

Elloren sighed, “fine, I’ll go to the Thursday session and then make a decision about Friday. Happy?”

“Very,” Tierney nodded in approval, “and even better: no one will be there Thursday, so there’ll be plenty of one on one time with Lukas.”

Elloren’s heart skipped a beat, “excuse me?”


End file.
